Archives for December 2015

It’s no secret that I love scrapbook sketches. They help by giving me a starting point for my page design. I am always on the hunt for sketches that would work with photo strips. I have a lot of them–the photo strips, I mean. 😉

I kind of went a little mist crazy on this page. I think it looks pretty good on the right side of the page, but it’s a little funny on the left. Thing is you can’t really control what mist will do. It’s like an out-of-control teenager.

I went through a flower stage a few years ago, and it was nice to get a few on this page. They were a little big, though, so I trimmed them a teeny bit.

For more information, check out my process video. You can hear all about my battles with foil.

My niece asked me to scrapbook this photo for her. I decided to make it simple: white background, a bit of mist, and a lot of layering.

I gotta say I love the way Heidi Swapp’s gold Color Shine looks. It’s always so pretty, and I use it on many layouts these days. I am also very happy about the amount of stash I’ve used here. Those paper layers behind the photo? All from my stash. So is the red washi tape, journaling sticker, and Santa diecut. I’ve had the latter for so long I wasn’t sure he’d ever land on a page. Maybe there’s hope for the elf and nutcracker diecuts too.

Since the layout is pretty simple, the process video is short. Check it out below.

All scrapbookers have pages they are proud of. That’s the case for me with this one.

As I’ve been reorganizing my scraproom, I came across some Christmas cards from 2011. One of my usual techniques when it comes to creating layouts to hold cards is to use some vellum and stitch a few rows. My sewing machine is out of commission, though, so I had to come up with something else.

The pouch is from the Pinkfresh Studio embellishment kit. Pinkfresh no longer does this monthly kit, but I was a subscriber for five or six months, so I had some pouches. I cut off the top flap of the pouch and used some 1-inch strip glue dots to adhere it to the page on three sides. Then, of course, I embellished the pouch.

I liked this layout so much that I created one for 2015 as well.

I am so excited to be able to put this year’s cards right into this pouch once the season is over. They will be all scrapbooked before the year is done!

I am also very pleased to say that much of the products I used are from my stash. The Christmas trees and poinsettia decorations? I’ve had them for longer than 10 years. The cardstock I used for both pages is from Club Scrap, which means it’s been around a while too.

Also something to note: on the second page, I was thinking of using red enamel dots, and then I realized the Thickers font I used for the title also has lots of punctuation pieces on it. So I added those instead.

You know how there are first-world problems? There are also scrapbooker problems, and I decided to scrapbook about one of them: Thickers, Thickers, everywhere. They aren’t a problem by themselves–in fact, I love them–but they do tend to sneak onto clothes and then fall off somewhere. So then I’ll later find a “q” outside in the back yard (this really happened) or a “k” in my bedroom (ditto; see the photo below).

I took several sets of Thickers where I had used up all the vowels and placed them on a gessoed piece of white cardstock. Then, I covered everything with light blue paint. I love the effect this created.

As for the stash, the blue blueprint paper is more than 10 years old. Some of the gessoed Thickers and the stickers are also from the stash as well.

I was checking the Victoria Marie Facebook group page when I saw that one of this week’s challenges is to scrapbook about friendship. That is easy enough to do. I chose this pic of me and three coworkers and got to work (ha ha!).

When it came to choosing a background color for this photo, I had a Goldilocks moment. The black patterned paper was too dark (though I use it as a strip along the top); white cardstock (my second choice) was too light. This light white/pale gray color I eventually chose ended up being just right. Plus it’s from a Tim Holtz paper pad that I’ve had for a while, and I LOVE using older products.

Which brings me to a list of the stashy items I used: the Tim Holtz paper, the pink vellum, the round sticker at the top of the page, and the yellow/pink flower diecut.

One of my biggest challenges when it comes to scrapping photos of friends is coming up with a title. I really don’t want 152 layouts that use “Friends” as the title, so my objective was to come up with something else. I ultimately went with “Take Two” because this was the second group photo we took. I explain things a bit more in the process video for this page, which you can see by clicking on the image below.

Hope you enjoy! I love the layers on this page, and the flair is fun too. So . . . challenge completed, and one more page is ready to go into an album. That alone makes it a success.

Hello, and welcome to Getting Scrap Done! This is where I share my scrapbook pages and talk about ways to get what’s in your scrappy stash onto finished pages.

Since we’re chatting, I’ll tell you a little about myself. I’m Alyssa, and I’ve been gluing photos into albums since I was in middle school. I started doing traditional scrapbooking in 1998, and I’ve been scrapping—and doing scrappy shopping—ever since. I’ve had years where I scrapbooked very little (if at all), but I’ve never had a year where I didn’t add supplies to my stash.

In 2008, I started a blog where I posted about my life. I started scrapbooking again (after a bit of a hiatus) and began sharing photos of my pages there. While I love playing with new scrappy products, I started what I call a stashometer to encourage me to use items from my stash. In early 2015, I discovered scrapbook process videos on YouTube. In August 2015, I posted my first process video of my own.

And that’s how Getting Scrap Done was born. It started as a YouTube channel and I decided it needed a website to match. What you’ll see in both places is a girl who loves scrapbooking and wants to use up some of the stuff she’s bought in the last 15 years. I will share process videos, photos, and tips. I’m also hoping to create a gallery for my scrapbook pages. This will take time, and I’ll let you know as I add things.